How to protect sourcecode

[Gurrlin]

Hi!

Earlier this year I did some research on what library to use when developing a game idea I have. I ended up with SmartFox but then life happened and I put the project on hold.

Coming back to it I'm trying to figure out how it would work with my game idea that will have the players hosting their own servers. How do I avoid them simply having unlimited access to the servercode and my extensions which will be a big chunk of the actual game?

[Lapo]

Hi,
you could use a code obfuscator, which makes your bytecode harder to decompile and rebuild.
You can learn more here:
https://www.owasp.org/index.php/Bytecode_obfuscation

Cheers

[HTCraft]

Unfortunately obfuscation isn't good protection for you code
In my humble opinion the best way to do this use C++ critical section code calling from Java and othewise.
Look at https://www.javaworld.com/article/20775 ... h-c--.html

[Lapo]

If you make a clever use of dynamic java invocations and obfuscation you can crash most (if not all) decompilers and make an attacker's life pretty hard.
The problem with C++ is that you loose the multiplatform features of Java, unless you want to compile for multiple platforms, and C++ is reverse engineer-able as well. In the end it all comes down to how difficult you want to make it.

Cheers

[Gurrlin]

Thanks for the replies both of you! Looks like I have some reading up to do